The Duchess of Idaho

Chapter 1 Idaho Everyone has secrets. Secrets are the things we keep tucked inside, just ours, for no one else, even those we love the most. Sometimes we keep secrets for reasons the holder might find embarrassing, like the middle-aged woman who calls herself Mrs. Eggers though everyone knows there has never been a Mister. Sometimes we keep secrets for reasons the holder knows will get them into trouble, like the man who says he’s across the country on a business trip when he’s really with a woman who is not his wife a few miles down the road. Sometimes we hold onto secrets for reasons the keeper doesn’t entirely understand, truths we can’t yet face or truths that may spark reactions we cannot bear. Some things are simply better left unsaid. At least, that’s what Grace Wentworth thought. There were so many things about her life she didn’t understand, and James and Sarah, her parents, were less than forthcoming. Grace had known since she was small that her parents had secrets together that they shared with no one. She also knew that James and Sarah were different from everyone else she knew—they were in the world yet distant from it, happy with their simple life, content in each other. It wasn’t that they were cold toward others. James and Sarah Wentworth hadn’t an unkind bone in their bodies. They had a smile for everyone, even if they didn’t socialize much, preferring to keep their own company. Doctor James Wentworth was a respected professor emeritus of literature who finished his academic career at UC Berkeley. Sarah had also retired from her librarian’s job at the university. James and Sarah were both young to retire—James was 50 and Sarah was 52—but together they decided it was time to leave their work behind. They bought a home in the picturesque town of Carmel-by-the-Sea along the California coast and they settled into a slow life, enjoying the little things—reading and writing for James, cooking and gardening for Sarah. If there were two people more content on earth, Grace had yet to meet them. Grace thought a lot about her parents’ secrets as she drove from Carmel to Portland, Oregon. As she traveled along the highway she watched the landscape morph from urban sprawl to rural beauty back to urban, still wondering about her parents and their intense connection to one another. Whatever secret knowledge they shared, Grace thought, they would take it to their graves. Shortly before her road trip, Grace brought the subject of her parents’ secrets up with Olivia Phillips, the woman she called Grandma. “It’s only right, Grace,” Olivia said. Olivia’s hoop earrings jingled as she nodded, and Grace smiled at the sight of her dear friend on Skype. At 82, Olivia still looked every bit the gypsy with her billowing blouses and peasant-style skirts. Her hair was more silver now than red, but the white-gray streaks suited Olivia’s mystical energy. “James and Sarah have been through a lot, and married couples should have some secrets together.” Grace nodded, unsure what to say. “Your turn will come, Grace. You’ll see what it’s like to have secrets with someone you love soon enough.” Grace laughed. “I don’t think my turn will ever come, Grandma. Only a few people are lucky enough to have what Mom and Dad have.” “How do you know you’re not one of those people?” “I suppose I don’t for sure. But what Mom and Dad have is special. Something about the way they gaze into each other’s eyes, something about the way they lean toward each other when the other’s talking. It’s as if no one else exists in the world. Sometimes they even forget Johnny and I are there.” “How is your brother? On his way to Europe?” “He landed at Heathrow yesterday.” “How are your parents taking it?” “They’re worried, but he’s 18 and they have to let him do his thing.” “Indeed, they do. I’ll call Johnny tomorrow.” Olivia moved her face closer to her phone’s camera and Grace couldn’t look away from the steel-gray eyes that seemed to see through her despite their physical distance. “Actually, Grace, you’re right. What your parents have together is very special. I know the way your mother’s eyes light up from a simple ‘Hello’ from your father. I’ve seen the way your father glows when your mother walks into the room. You’re a young woman now, and I hope that at 22 you’re old enough to realize how lucky you are to have been raised by parents who love each other so completely since they’ve shared that infinite love with your brother and you. Your parents are beshert, Grace.” “What does that mean?” “If a husband and wife are meant to be together, they’re beshert. It means the husband and wife are soulmates and it’s inevitable that they end up together. It’s destiny. And you, my darling granddaughter, I wish the same for you. I wish for a soulmate as perfect for you as your parents are for each other.” “I just wish they would tell me their secrets,” Grace said. “I know they’re hiding something from me.” “Everything in its own time, Grace. We learn everything we need to know in its own time.” “But to keep secrets from their own daughter?” “Nothing is ever what it seems. You’ll learn that for yourself soon enough.” When Grace packed for her road trip, she thought she had found a way to broach the subject with her mother. Grace was at her parents’ turquoise-colored house near the Carmel shore, and she was pulling her t-shirts and jeans from the closet and laying them out on her bed. The gently slapping sound of low-tide waves breezed through the open window. Sarah was helping Grace pack by rolling the shirts and jeans and slipping them into the rollaway bags Grace would take with her. “I’m surprised your mother has asked me to come to Idaho to visit her,” Grace said. “I only remember her visiting us that once before Johnny was born.” “Annabelle is full of surprises, Grace. But she’s asked to see you and it’s nice of you to go.” “You mean she’s asked me to help her clean out her house.” “Yes, that too, but she’s making contact and that’s a good sign.” Grace sat at the end of the bed. “You and your mom don’t really get along, do you?” Sarah twisted the blue t-shirt in her hands and sighed. “My mother and I, I don’t know, we’re just very different people. She’s very sociable, Annabelle, and I’ve always been more of a bookish introvert. My father, your Grandpa Miles, you would have liked him very much. He and I were much more alike. I don’t know how he stayed married to your grandmother, honestly.” Grace pulled a backpack from the closet and filled it with toiletries and her hairbrush. “Isn’t she nice?” “She’s…” Grace’s father, James, stood in the doorway, his hands in his trouser pockets, his eyeglasses low on his nose. “An acquired taste.” Sarah laughed. “Yes, thank you, James. Your grandmother Annabelle is an acquired taste. But she is your grandmother, and maybe it’s time you got to know her.” Grace marveled at how her parents had hardly aged. Sarah Wentworth was 52 and she was as beautiful as she had ever been. Her chocolate-brown curls were largely silver now, her curves rounder than when Grace was younger. There was a stillness within Sarah’s dark eyes, a wisdom, as if she had lived ten lifetimes. James was 50 now, still tall, still strong-looking, his hair still largely gold if graying at the temples. They looked right together, James and Sarah—two halves of a whole. “We moved to Boston when I was young,” Sarah said, “but I remember that house in Idaho very well. And Boise has grown a lot since I lived there. I used to have such vivid dreams when I lived in Idaho.” James leaned his tall frame against the wall. “You had vivid dreams in Massachusetts too, as I recall.” Sarah tried to swat her husband with the t-shirt. “I’ve always had intense dreams. It’s just that some were more meaningful than others.” “What kind of dreams did you have?” Grace asked. Sarah shook her head. She reached into the closet for a hoodie jacket and began rolling. “I don’t remember the dreams from when I was a child in Idaho, exactly. I remember that I woke up in the middle of the night certain I had come back from somewhere, but I couldn’t have told you where. Then when I moved to Salem I felt as if I had lived in that seaside town my whole life though I had never been there before.” Sarah and James glanced at each other, that secrecy between them. “Sounds like something Grandma Olivia would love,” Grace said. “She’s into dream interpretation, mysticism, and all that sort of thing.” Sarah set the hoodie into the rollaway bag. “My dreams were so vivid in Salem I even kept a dream journal to keep track of them.” “Was this when you met Dad?” “As a matter of fact, the dreams became more powerful after I met your father.” “What dreams, Mom?” Grace grabbed Sarah’s hands. “Mom?” She looked at James. “Dad?” “It was nothing, Grace,” Sarah said. “I’ve always had vivid dreams.” “Do you still have that dream journal?” Grace asked. James shook his head, just enough. “No,” Sarah said. “I don’t think I kept it. After a while I didn’t need it anymore.” Grace sighed. “Mom, I know you and Dad are keeping something from me.” “You make it sound like a conspiracy,” James said. “Your mother and I have only ever wanted the very best for you and your brother. You must know how much we love you. For every single one of your 22 years, Grace, you have been our miracle. And you always will be, no matter what the future brings.” “But…” Sarah brushed a gold curl from Grace’s blue eyes that perfectly matched her father’s. “There’s nothing you need to know, Grace. I promise you. Everything is fine. Our family is fine. And if you do have strange dreams in Idaho like I had in Massachusetts, then you should keep a dream journal too. You never know what you might discover.” “I can’t remember a single dream I’ve had in my entire life,” Grace said. “You’re definitely my daughter,” James said. “I don’t remember my dreams either.” In the morning, James and Sarah loaded Grace’s luggage into the back of Sarah’s white Subaru Forester. Grace’s first stop was Oregon to visit friends from Portland State University. It was June now, only a month since she graduated from PSU with a degree in American History. She had returned home to attend Berkeley for a Master’s and she was looking forward to it. After all, she and Johnny had practically grown up on the campus. A week after returning to California, though, Sarah’s mother called to say that she needed help cleaning out her house in Idaho and she wondered if Grace would be willing to help. “I still don’t understand why Annabelle asked for me,” Grace said as James set the last rollaway bag into the back of the Subaru. “I offered to go, but she wanted you,” Sarah said. “She and I agree that since you’re a budding historian you may like her house. Who knows? Most of what she has stashed away is probably junk, but you may find some treasures too. Your Grandpa Miles used to love to go up to the attic and read the books and papers that have been in our family for years. The house isn’t as old as our place in Massachusetts, but it’s seen more than a century pass and your grandmother has a lot of antiques. Her stove is authentic from the nineteenth century.” “Doesn’t it smoke her out of her house?” Grace asked. “She’s had it modernized so it’s electrical now. Her sewing machine is from the early 1900s. She loves the old-fashioned life, my mother. She loves to garden, bake bread in her old-fashioned oven, ride her horses, and quilt.” “That’s not so different from how you and Dad live now.” “There’s something peaceful about quiet,” James said. “Sometimes you don’t know how beautiful silence can be until you don’t have it anymore.”